
HEARTS AWAKE 



AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 















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HEARTS AWAKE 



BY AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 

HEARTS AWAKE 

THE SILVER TRUMPET 

SYLVANDER AND CLARINDA 

LIFE AND LIVING 

IN DEEP PLACES 

THE ROADSIDE FIRE 

NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 





H EART S 
AWAKE 


THE PIXY 

Burr 

f 





A"" 






COPYRIGHT, 1919, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



OCT 30 1919 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



)CI.A535531 



TO J. 

"A Comrade's troth is the Romany gold 
And we're taking the road together." 



Some of the poems in this volume are reprinted by 
courtesy of "Everybody's Magazine" "The Outlook," 
"The Bellman," "Reedy's Mirror," "The Century," "The 
Poetry Journal," "Life," "The Woman's Home Compan- 
ion," "Scribner's Magazine," "The Bookman," and "The 
Masque of Poets," in which they originally appeared. 



CONTENTS 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Our Flag ♦,.,.•, ^ * . 13 

Who Is My Neighbor? ..•.•. 14 

# Serbia to America, 1918 15 

New England Fishing Song, 1918 . , 17 

* A Priest of France 18 

. A Rose for France ...•,.• 20 

^Carey's Men , . 23 

The Troop Train ....*,. 25 

How Shall We Know You? .... 30 

Not by Bread Alone ..^... 32 

Restoration ..* 33 

Mr. Valiant Passes Over • ^ * » . 35 

Joyce Kilmer ••••37 

Singers in the Service .,*,;.. 38 
A Lie-Awake Song 

Night Magic • ^ . 40 

Romany Gold »•*. 41 

The Romany Sign • • 43 

Calypso 45 

Beatrice Speaks from Heaven! .... 47 



[ix] 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Unpunished? 49 

God's Challenge . 50 

Two Songs • 52 

Windflowers • • 53 

Barbe Verrue 54 

Romance • . 56 

Under the Fig Tree 58 

On Latmos 62 

'Gifts 71 

The Pixy . 73 



[x] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HEARTS AWAKE 



OUR FLAG 

f\ F old it was our heritage, the red and white 
^^^ and blue. 

Our grandsires died to raise it and our sires 

to keep it true. 
We prayed we might be worthy of their 

memory as we cast 
In starry beauty to the wind the banner of 

our past, 
But now — O God, we name to Thee our liv- 
ing and our dead. 
Bone of our bone the white has grown, flesh 

of our flesh the red. 
Our substance and our souls we pledge to 

keep it undefiled. 
Of old it was our heritage — ^to-day it is our 

child. 



[13] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR 

TXT" HAT is my home to me, if I shut out the 
^^ city? 

What is my country to me, if I take no 

thought for the world? 
What is my friend to me, if I am cold to 

mankind? 
What is my conscience to me, if I forget 
God? 



[14] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



SERBIA TO AMERICA 

1918 

TT ARK, from the East a keen and bitter cry — 
New tears are flowing in the furrows of 

old sorrow. 
On your wasted fields your dead lie like 

fallen leaves. 
Only the Pale Harvester garners heavy 

sheaves — 
How have you the courage to struggle 

toward to-morrow, 
Serbia, Serbia, land that will not die? 

I have stood for Freedom — Freedom 

cannot perish. 
I have stood for Honor — Honor must 

endure. 
But my children starve, the children 

who should cherish 



HEARTS AWAKE 



SERBIA TO AMERICA (continued) 

For the world's to-morrow my spirit 

flaming-pure. 
You who sit in safety, you whose babes 

are fed, 
You who by the peril of other men are 

free. 
Listen to my living ere the hour be 

sped, 
Lest you hear forever the silence of my 

dead. 



Serbia, Serbia, God hears. Do we? 



[i6] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



NEW ENGLAND FISHING SONG, 1918 



D 



OES he think to scare us from sailing by a 

threat of death on the sea? 
It's little the man at Potsdam knows of 

such men as we. 
We have wrested our living so long from 

the grip of the jealous waves 
That half of the stones in our churchyard 

mark no graves. 
We do not ask to be coffined where we were 

bom and bred, 
Nor our women whimper and cringe when 

they cannot bury their dead. 
Now that the weal of the world comes to 

our nets with the cod, 
We who could dare for ourselves, shall we 

play the coward for God? 
Let them sink a score of our fleets, we will 

sail, and sail again. 
It's little the man at Potsdam knows of New 

England men! 

[17] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



H 



A PRIEST OF FRANCE 

E was too old to fight, they said — 

But though the frost was on his head 
The holy fire was in his heart; 
So as an Aumonier he came. 
Bold as a paladin aflame 
To honor his beloved's name 
By playing well a hero's part. 

There was no weariness for him. 
His faded eyes were never dim 
In finding where the wounded lay. 
His frail old limbs were strong to plod 
Across the marsh of bloody sod 
That none might go uncheered to God 
Without His love to light the way. 

So often at the final word 

A woman's name was what he heard ; 

[i8] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



A PRIEST OF FRANCE (continued) 

Then he said tenderly, "I know — " 
His eyes grown wistful for the sight 
Of a little dingy church, all bright 
With candles for a holy night. 
Our Lady smiling in the glow. 

At last an obus had its will — 

One leg was torn away, but still 

Among the dying he crawled on. 

Another shot — this time he fell 

And could not rise ... he heard his bell 

Ringing the Angelus . . . out of hell 

And into Heaven, he was gone. 

Little and dingy, but the light 

Of candles falls by day and night 

Upon a soldier's medal there 

Set shrine-like by the chancel side. 

For to the Church that was his bride, 

Whose lover he had lived and died, 

France gave his Croix de Guerre. 



[19] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



A ROSE FOR FRANCE 
(A True Story) 

OOLDIERS three at a county fair; 
Soldiers — the eldest is only a boy — 
Come to saunter and smile and stare 
And perhaps to let the girls enjoy 
The set of the khaki new and smart 
On the strong young shoulders held so 

square. 
Clean and sturdy of limb and heart, 
Soldiers three at a county fair. 



A Red Cross booth where the workers sit 
All in white, and among them three 
Gentle old women who knit and knit 
In a quaint sweet dress from over the sea — 
Sorrowful flotsam of ravaged France, 
Under their kerchiefs woes untold, 

[20] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



A ROSE FOR FRANCE (continued) 

And their capfrills hide from the careless 

glance 
The patient eyes of the stricken old. 

How should a boy's heart understand 
The glory and grief of those knitters gray? 
A moment's halt for the blithe young band, 
Then they drift with the crowd away — 
Ah, but see ! they are back again, 
A crimson rose in the hand of each, 
And slowly, clumsily, as it were pain 
To put his soul into speech. 

"We fellows thought—" so the eldest spoke 
With a flush that burned to his close-cropped 

hair, 
"That the old French ladies — " his young 

voice broke — 
"Should have a posy to wear." 
France, O France ! did you feel that day 
The beating heart of this land of ours 
Close at your side in the heat of the fray, — 
Our love in the blood-red flowers? 

[21] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



A ROSE FOR FRANCE (continued) 

Those lads — and others — shall bring, 

maybe, 
A brighter rose to your breast, O France, 
When shoulder to shoulder the foe shall see 
Your sons and our own advance — 
The rose you have scattered ungrudgingly 
On the fields where at last we may bear our 

part — 
A rose with the thorns of Calvary, 
And its root in a mother's heart. 



[22] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



T 



CAREY'S MEN 

HEIR hearts were hot as youth's with gen- 
erous fire 
To give their utmost — ^wisdom said, too 

late ; 
But destiny cried Yea to their desire, 
And fearlessly they grasped the hand of fate. 
Between the Prussian tyrant and his goal 
The line of Britain's army broke — and then 
Arose a land's imperishable soul 
And England's laborers were Carey's Men. 

Theirs was the task to build the roads for 

feet 
On the great march against the power of 

Mars. 
They asked not if the drudgery were sweet, 
They only did it — till the kindly stars 
Decreed they too should taste the uttermost 



HEARTS AWAKE 



CAREY'S MEN (continued) 

Of sacrifice's costly joy, and then 
Shouting they leaped exultant to their post, 
And Yankee engineers were Carey's Men. 

Scabbarded swords that God alone can know 
The temper of, we live our days, and then 
For each of us, at last. His bugles blow. 
Grant us to meet Thy test like Carey's 
Men! 



(Brigadier General Sandeman Carey held the gap be- 
tween the Third and Fifth British Armies in the first days 
of the German drive in Picardy with a hastily organized 
force of Labor Battalions, Engineers, and any one else in 
reach.) 



[24] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE TROOP TRAIN 



A HEAD of them the ocean with its devil- 
"^ ^ haunted miles, 

Those brown young faces with their brave, 

strained smiles, 
And I must show a good cheer and wave 

as they go past 
Because of all their Godspeeds mine may be 
the last. 



Father of all free men, be Thou their 

strength and shield 
In the perils of the furlough and the perils 

of the field! 
Clean and strong and beautiful, bring them 

back again, 

[25] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE TROOP TRAIN (continued) 

Those dear boyish faces at the windows of 
the train! 

Yes, and make me worthy to welcome them 
that day — 

To wave to them as gallantly as when they 
went away, 

Saying, "Smiling I may greet you, for I 
have done my share. 

Here have I been faithful, as you were faith- 
ful there." 



npHEY used to thunder sorrow irl the night, 
Those heavy troop-trains passing — and by 

day. 
When I stood waving to the windows bright 
With brave boy faces, it was hard to show 
A spirit worthy of their greeting gay. 
But now the wheels are singing as they go — 
There's the Arizona cowboy who is home- 
sick for the rancho 

[26] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE TROOP TRAIN (continued) 

And the yelp of a coyote where the Gila 

waters run. 
There's the laughing lad from Oregon with 

cheeks like Portland roses 
And a wound stripe that he got in the Ar- 

gonne. 
There's the Louisiana Frenchman with a 

golden star to witness 
How he left his pleasant rice-fields with the 

first to volunteer. 
There's the ace from Minneapolis who 

broke a German prison, 
And it's only by a miracle he's here. 
There's the Indiana circus-clown whose 

tumbling days are over, 
But the soul of him is stronger than his 

spine can ever be. 
There's the blue-eyed boy from Georgia, 

with a drawl like golden syrup. 
And his buddy who is bound for Tennessee. 
There's the lean keen Yankee fighter who is 

going back to battle 

[27] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE TROOP TRAIN (continued) 

With briefs instead of bullets at his place on 

Beacon Street. 
There's the lad who offered Liberty his 

clean young mind and body, 
And who smiles because she only took his 

feet. 
There's the sergeant who swore off ten 

years to get himself in khaki, 
And his wound would not have lamed him if 

he hadn't been so old. 
There's the fellow with the Croix de Guerre 

who hides it in his pocket — 
It's a long, long trail to get that story told ! 
There's the boy whose eyes are dark with 

incommunicable horror — 
No scar upon his body but his heart has felt 

the flame — 
While another went through hell without a 

scorch upon his spirit 
And his mother's eyes will find him still the 

same. 
From Atlantic to Pacific, from Dakota down 

to Texas, 



[28] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE TROOP TRAIN (continued) 

America is listening for those wheels upon 

the road. 
Hearts are beat for beat with them and 

prayers are keeping time with them. 
O Father, bless the troop trains and their 

load! 
To the forest, to the mountain, to the prairie 

and the mesa, 
To the silver southern beaches and the 

Maine rocks cold with foam. 
To the loving hearts that wait behind the 

star-flag in the window, 
The boys are going home — ^home — ^home! 



[29] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HOW SHALL WE KNOW YOU? 

ADS who went laughing where your com- 
■^ rades died — 
Maimed though you were, whose spirit did 

not swerve — 
When the worn uniforms are laid aside, 
How shall we know you, lads we love to 

serve? 

To all men who go haltingly in pain 
We must be quick in kindness, lest it be 
That one of those who saved us ask in vain 
Our thanks for what he gave so willingly. 

All blindness henceforth we must sacred 

hold 
Lest we slight one on whom the shadow fell 
In holier crusade than those of old, 
At Chateau-Thierry or at St. Mihiel, 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HOW SHALL WE KNOW YOU? (continued) 

And every troubled life that walks apart, 
Darkened as by mysterious poison-smoke. 
We dare not judge lest we misjudge a heart 
Which bore the sacrificial fire — and broke. 

So high the cost that we should understand 
True brotherhood — has it at last sufficed? 
Show us, Lord Love, thy wound in every 

hand — 
In every heart the shadow of the Christ! 



[31] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



♦ 



NOT BY BREAD ALONE 

T T E laughed aloud to see the table spread. 
For all his khaki and his three gold bars, 
Yes, and the scars 

On his thin face, he still was such a boy, 
So frankly simple in the greedy joy 
With which he ate his supper, that I smiled 
For happy thankfulness that all war's harms 
And horrors had no power to blight in him 
The everlasting Child. 
"Home cooking will taste good to you,'* I 

said. 
He paused with lifted fork, distended cheek. 
And wistful eyes that made my own grow 

dim. 
"If I could just get Mother in my arms 
I wouldn't ask to eat, not for a week!" 



[32] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



RESTORATION 

' HEY look upon us through the mystic door, 
Those who have passed, those who shall 

come to birth, 
Waiting for us, the living, to restore 
Beauty and fruitfulness to ravaged earth. 
Where there were trees there must be trees 

again. 
Sweet servants of the soil's imperious needs. 
Because the Spring must not return in vain 
Nor Autumn's bounty waste itself in weeds. 
Where there was hope there must again be 

hope. 
Undaunted beauty shining through the 

scars, 
Because however men may fall and grope 
They must not lose the everlasting stars. 
It were the work of angels to revive 
The orchard's fragrant ecstasy of flowers, 

[33] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



RESTORATION (continued) 

To bid the murdered forest wake alive — 
The work of angels — and God makes it ours. 
A still diviner labor to reflower 
The spirit's orchards after hate's red blight, 
And He, the Lord of Life, who understands 
All things, has laid it in our faltering hands. 
O Will of God, upon our hands be power! 
O Love of God, within our hearts be light! 



[34] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



w 



MR. VALIANT PASSES OVER 

(January 6, 1919) 

HEN the Post came and told him that at 

last 

The pitcher that so faithfully and long 
Had served his fellow-creatures in their 

thirst 
Was broken at the fountain, Valiant said: 
"I am going to my Father's ; and although 
Not easily I came to where I am, 
My pains upon the journey were well 

spent. 
My sword I give to him who shall succeed 
My pilgrim steps upon the Royal Road; 
My courage and my skill I leave to him 
Who can attain them — but my marks and 

scars 
I carry with me for my King to see 
As witness of His battles that I fought." 

[35] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



MR. VALIANT PASSES OVER (continued) 

As he went down into the river, many 
Stood on the bank and heard him say: "O 

death, 
Where is thy sting?" And as the water 

grew 
Deeper — "O grave, where is thy victory?" 
So he passed over, and the trumpets all 
Sounded for him upon the other side. 

John Bunyan, did you laugh in para- 
dise 

For joy to-day, to see your dream 
come true? 



[36] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



JOYCE KILMER 

QURELY the saints you loved visibly came 
^ To welcome you, that day in Picardy — 
Stephen whose dying eyes beheld his Lord, 
Michael, a living blade of crystal flame, 
And all the flower of heavenly chivalry 
Smiling upon you, calling you by name. 
Leaving your body like a broken sword 
You went with them — and now, beyond our 

sight. 
Still in the ranks of God you sing and fight, 
For death to you was one more victory. 



[37] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



w 



SINGERS IN THE SERVICE 

E who are called arise 
To an imperious unaccustomed toil 

And lay aside the garments that we wore 

Trailing the quiet years that went before — 

The old serenities 

And the familiar beauty. To the soil 

We go, to elemental force and stress. 

To own and to defy our weariness ; 

And we breathe beauty where we never 
thought 

Beauty could be, and brotherhood un- 
sought 

Is warm in us, who wished for it amiss 

And coldly at our ease — how long ago! 

We live, who sang of life we did not know. 

And more than all our loss and gain, we 
see 

Another age, the happy heir of this — 

[38] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



SINGERS IN THE SERVICE (continued) 

Children of the future, clean and free, 
Wearing with new majesty the dear 
Familiar beauty that we laid aside; 
In their illumined eyes 
Fixed holy stars, the old serenities; 
Before their joyous feet a way made clear 
By the great strife where we saw God — 
and died. 



[39] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



NIGHT MAGIC 

(A Lie-Awake Song) 

^TpHE apples falling from the tree 
•^ Make such a heavy bump at night 
I always am surprised to see 
They are so little, when it's light; 



A 



T 



ND all the dark just sings and sings 

So loud, I cannot see at all 
How frogs and crickets and such things 
That make the noise, can be so small. 

HEN my own room looks larger, too — 

Corners so dark and far away— 
I wonder if things really do 
Grow up at night and shrink by day? 



F 



OR I dream sometimes, just as clear, 
I'm bigger than the biggest men — 
Then mother says, "Wake up, my dear!' 
And I'm a little boy again. 

[40] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ROMANY GOLD 

nPHERE'S a crackle of brown on the leaf's 

crisp edge 
And the goldenrod blooms have begun to 

feather. 
We're two jolly vagabonds under a hedge 
By the dusty road together. 



f^OVLD an emperor boast such a house as 
^^ ours, 

The sky for a roof and for couch the clover? 

Does he sleep as well under silken flowers 

As we, when the day is over? 



T T E sits at ease at his table fine 

With the richest of meat and drink before 
him. 
I eat my crust with your hand in mine, 

[41] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ROMANY GOLD (continued) 

And your eyes are cups of a stronger wine 
Than any his steward can pour him. 



W 



HAT if the autumn days grow cold? 
Under one cloak we can brave the 
weather. 
A comrade's troth is the Romany gold, 
And we're taking the road together. 



[42] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



o 



THE ROMANY SIGN 

VER the hills with the Romany train 
Through the sweet wet woods and the 

whispering rain, 
Looking back through veils o£ gray 
To the roofs of the town where we paused 

to-day. 
There in the crowded market-place 
Is a Romany heart with a Gorgio face. 
Where did you find the heart of my clan 
Under the shadow of roof and spire? 
Did your mother dream of a Romany man 
In the house of your Gorgio sire? 
Even so shall you dream of me 
When you light the hearth for a fair white 

bride — 
Of a path untrodden, a door untried, 
And an hour that is never to be. 
I have set my patteran 

[43] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE ROMANY SIGN (continued) 

Deep in your Romany heart. 

I broke a branch from my tree of life 

Where the sweetest buds had begun to 

start — 
And they never shall bloom, but they never 

shall fall. 
Wide are the ways of your feet and mine — 
It's the market-place for the Gorgio face, 
And the roof, and the spire, and the fair 

white wife. 
I'm over the hills with the Romany chal, 
And there's never a fire shall warm us twain 
The width of a world apart. 
But — ^what is a world to the Romany heart 
That follows the Romany sign? 



[44] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



CALYPSO 

Vr^ANDERER, we must part — so the gods 

decree. 
You must go again to Ithaca. 
The cold green waves shall wash you of 

the memory of me, 
Breaking on the coast of Ithaca. 
Built we a house of dreams, beautiful in 

seeming. 
But for those the Thunderer wakes, there 

is no more dreaming. 
Go now, spread your sail, turn your prow 

to sea — 
Yonder lies the way to Ithaca. 

' I ^ HEIRS is to obey, whom the gods com- 
mand — 
Holy is the hearth in Ithaca. 
Home and harvest are waiting for your 
hand — 



HEARTS AWAKE 



CALYPSO (continued) 

Fruitful are the fields of Ithaca. 

Love the life you chose while it still is yours 

for living, 
Lest the gods take back again the treasures 

of their giving. 
Passes our joy like our footprints in the 

sand — 
Granite are the cliffs of Ithaca. 

T HAVE sent him back, at the gods' 
decree — 

I have sent him back to Ithaca. 

Never will I walk again beside the twi- 
light sea 

On the shore that looks toward Ithaca 

Lest the wind should bring to him a 
breath of days gone by. 

Of the beauty and the sorrow of his 
madness that was I. . . . 

Peace to him and his, O Zeus! I ask 
no more of thee — 

Peace upon that home in Ithaca. 



HEARTS AWAKE 



BEATRICE SPEAKS FROM HEAVEN 

CERENE upon the heights above the world 
I stand forever to his longing soul 
A shining refuge from the cares of life, 
I, who enskied his mind and freed his song 
To weave its harmony with the singing stars 
Where Beatrice is all of Heaven to him. 
But when he flings his weary body down 
There in our Florence, there's a hand that 

soothes 
His hot and furrowed forehead. Coarse with 

toil 
And reddened in his service is that hand — 
Callous, but so tender in its touch ! 
I bless thee, Gemma's palm upon his brow — 
Blessings drawn like blood-drops from my 

heart, 
That would be tears, were this not Paradise. 
Dante, thou lovest me — I know, I know — 

[47] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



BEATRICE SPEAKS FROM HEAVEN 
(continued) 

A love supreme, higher than mortal loves, 
A love that lifts its head among the angels, 
A love that crowns me with a crown of stars 
And everlasting laurel, that shall make 
My name immortal, and shall fix us twain 
Spirit to spirit, face to face forever 
In the world's memory — such is Dante's 

love. . . . 
Yet, oh, my lover, I was woman once. 
And neither Paradise nor that love of thine 
Can make my ghost of womanhood forget 
Those needle-roughened finger-tips of hers — 
The little greedy mouth upon her breast. 



[48] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



H 



UNPUNISHED? 

E walks at liberty the public streets. 

The law has weighed his deed and let him 

go, 
And yet — is he quite scathless when he 

meets 
The men and women whom he used to 

know? 
Is there no sting in the averted gaze 
Of those among whom he has broken bread, 
Or in the furtive glances that appraise 
The dull dishonored silver of his head? 
Cheered by such comradeship as he can buy 
He goes his way that daily grows more dim, 
Trusted by none, with none that he can 

trust. 
I wonder if he never with a sigh 
Confronts the years that gape ahead of him 
And wishes that the verdict had been just. 

[49] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



GOD'S CHALLENGE 

'T^ HE story we have written on the past 
■*" Is neither to forget nor to undo. 

Our memories must walk until the last 
A barrier and a bond between us two ; 
But wrong beyond the wrong that we have 

done 
Would be to sap the strength of coming 

years 
With shame that makes a darkness of the 

sun — 
To fade the web of life with futile tears. 



w 



E sinned against the world — then ours to 

give 
The world a service greater than our sin, 
An understanding love for all who live 
That could not be, except for what has 

been. 

[5^] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



GOD'S CHALLENGE (continued) 

Thank God for His high challenge ! It shall 
bring 

Grapes from our thorns, and from our bit- 
ter well 

Sweet waters for the strength and com- 
forting 

Of those who walk in safety where we fell. 



[51] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



D 



TWO SONGS 

I 

EAR, we have kissed and laughed between 
the kisses; 

Our lips have met upon the salt of tears. 

We have remembered — while our paths 
were parted, 

Love held a hand of each along the years. 

But sweeter even than the kiss you gave me, 

More child than lover, scarce aroused from 
sleep. 

Was that your eyes implored and mine re- 
fused you 

That something better might be ours to 
keep. 

2 

WILL give you jewels of the sunrise 

And webs of twilight for your soul to wear, 
Words of wonder for the spring's wild beauty, 
The will to venture and the strength to bear, 
I will light white fire upon your altar. 
You to me only one gift shall make — 
An alabaster box of precious fragrance 
That your own hands must break. 



I 



[52] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



WINDFLOWERS 

TT T-INDFLOWERS have blossomed in the 
' '^ bare brown woods. 

Rosy-white, frail, they are quivering to 

the air 
That is pure and cold like a young girl's 

dreams. 
Summer will come, and serpents in the 

brush ; 
Autumn's clinging mists and the sadness 

of dead leaves ; 
Winter's hard beauty and desolate white 

peace ; 
Over and over, year after year. . . . 
And always, thank God, each year will 

bring a day 
When windflowers blossom in the bare 

brown woods. 



[53] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



BARBE VERRUE 

r> ARBE VERRUE, troubadouresse 
'^ Of the pleasant land of France, 
Far and wide I roamed to bless 
Hill and valley with romance. 
Many a lord of high estate 
Would have won me for his mate, 
Many a squire of low degree 
Would have shared his crust with me, 
For the singer's piercing art 
Cleaves the doublet, finds the heart — 
If their blood ran red or blue. 
Men were men, to Barbe Verrue, 
But I turned from every plea 
Choosing rather to be free. 
Oh, the merry life I had 
In my journeys up and down, 
Town to tower and tower to town, 
Making honest people glad! 

[54] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



BARBE VERRUE (continued) 

Daughter of the science gay, 
I am paid for service true 
By the simple souls who pray 
For the peace of Barbe Verrue. 



[55] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ROMANCE 

'T^HE sweet spring woods — a clouded moon 
■*■ — and youth. . . . 

And the eternal truth 

Of all the sweet sad throbbing songs of old, 
Of all the tales the troubadours have told. 
This boy with proud bent head, this grave 

shy girl 
Whose rapt face takes the moonlight like a 

pearl. 
Are not themselves alone. 
How many feet in theirs this path has 

known ! 
This is the garden of old Capulet, 
The tryst of Aucassin and Nicolette, — 
Those wide mysterious eyes 
Drew Dante's wandering soul to Paradise, 
Mirrored the hungry flames of ruined Troy 
And made the years of servitude a joy 

[56] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ROMANCE (continued) 

To Rachel's shepherd. By the tawny Nile 
Antony sold the world for that swift smile. 
On that strong breast Francesca fearless 

died. 
So shone the Swan-Knight to his rescued 

bride. 
They pass into the dusk . . .so met and 

clung 
Those lips in Eden, when the world was 

young. 



[57] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



UNDER THE FIG TREE 

"Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under 
the fig tree, I saw thee." 
Nathanael answered, "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God." 



H 



O W still it is ! In such an hour as this 
Of twilight silence, one might hear the 

steps 
Of Destiny draw near across the world — 
Only it is not so great moments come. 
We do not hear their tread ; we sit at meat, 
Perhaps, among our friends — ^perhaps at 

work 
Among the little pleasant common things 
That make what we call life — ^when all at 

once 
We lift our eyes and in the open door 
We see Fate standing. And we do not rise, 
It may be, from the table — nor let fall 
The tool that we are using — ^but we know 
That we shall never be the same again. 

[58] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



UNDER THE FIG TREE (continued) 

Why should those words be terrible? 

To change — 

Is it because upon all change there lies 
The shadow of the great, the final change? 
Each outgrown living is a little death. 
I think that is the reason why I love 
Well-trodden paths, familiar friendly scenes, 
Trees that, like this, I know from early 

green 
To winter bareness. I would bar my door 
Forever, if I might, against all change. . . . 
So men grow cowards. Will there come a 

day 
My love of custom will be fear of change. 
My love of life shrivel to fear of death? 
Unless a thing can grow, it must decay. 
Shall I be stiff of fiber, dim of sight. 
Impatient of all vision that exceeds 
My own, hard even in my kindliness? 
I have known such men and judged them 

not too gently ; 
But somehow it is clear to me to-night. 
Perhaps they only loved the known too well. 

[59] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



UNDER THE FIG TREE (continued) 

If there could rise a prophet to proclaim 

All life is one, here and beyond the 
grave — 

There is no change, only increase of 
light 

Upon the things we know! If that 
might be — 
Would I have ears to hearken and a heart 
To understand? And would I dare to face 
Living and dying and what lies beyond 
As a supreme adventure, caring nothing 
What might befall me, if I could but see 
That growing light? Or would I turn 

away. . . . 
Is it too late? O God, be merciful 
To me, who may, although I have not sinned 
Grossly, as men call sin, be lost at last 
More than the broken sweepings of the 

street. 
Good that is turned to ill, and knows it not ! 
Strike me with thy flaming sword of love 
That cuts like wrath ! Rend suddenly apart 
The veils of habit and long prejudice 



[60] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



UNDER THE FIG TREE (continued) 

That make a twilight in my house of life ! 
Jehovah, bid me live ! 

No angel comes — 
Only friend Philip hastening through the 

dusk. 
Now I remember — he would have me go 
Hear some new teacher. . . . Philip is a 

man 
Of swift and easy ardors for things new. 
Can any good come out of Nazareth? 
Yet I will go — rather than wound a friend. 



[6i] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



I 



ON LATMOS 

CALLED him to the mountain, and he came. 

The valley drew him — ah, could I not see 
How slowly and reluctantly at first 
His feet were turned from the familiar ways? 
Until I stooped to him and put aside 
The dimness of his sight that hid my face ; 
Then he came gladly, but with arms out- 
stretched, 
Hasting with quickened breath and burning 

eyes 
As man to woman. So I led him on 
A pace ahead, always a pace ahead 
And out of reach — and so he followed me. 
Now he is mine. His body lies asleep 
Lax as a child's, unmoving — but his soul. . * . 
His soul stands up as one who puts aside 
His garments at the games to run his course. 
So do I love thee best, End5niiion! 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ON LATMOS (continued) 

Clad in this cast-off garb, however fair, 
Thy kisses would have made of Artemis 
Only a woman. Now thou art a god, 
Bringer of beauty to the weary world, 
Making its darkness bright — even as I 
Among the stars, on earth Endymion. 
Ours is the commerce of immortal love — 
Hearts lifted and assuaged, the hand of wrong 
Palsied in act to strike, healing of pain 
And quickening of poverty to hope, 
Mercy in minds that knew it not, and joy 
In the dulled eyes of weepers — by these things 
Thou, godlike, dost attest thy love for me, 
A goddess, and thou fieelest in thy strength 
My tenderness, and knowest me thine own. 
Yet thou wert born a man and not a god. 
Strange — had I left thee in the valley there 
Thou wouldst have stayed a shepherd, rising 

slow 
With yawns and stretchings of unwilling limbs 
And eyes too heavy to behold the dawn. 
Until the fervid touch of eager noon 
Kindled thy blood to human passion. Nay, 

[63] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ON LATMOS (continued) 

How had I borne to see thee dancing then 
Among the herd-girls, thrilled with sudden 

sight 
Of swaying arms and soft young bosoms, 

dazed 
By some warm gust of unexpected curls 
That blinds thee with soft fragrance, squan- 
dering 
Thy strength and youth and beauty in the 

arms 
Of what is of the earth, and shall endure 
No longer than the earth ; to see thee grow 
Heavy of foot and gnarled of hand, a churl 
Deep drinking with the rest at harvest home, 
Taking to bed and board a docile mate 
To give thee food and children at the will 
Of thy gross, thoughtless body, and at last 
To see thee die, tired out, yet clinging still 
To that uncomely garment stained with use 
And shapeless grown with age and careless 

wear, — 
That garment men would call Endymion ! 
Across the starry spaces comes to me 



[64] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ON LATMOS (continued) 

My liberated lover's cry of joy : 
"This is the better way, my love!" — and yet 
That red mouth moves as to a woman's kiss. 
The languid arm grows tense, as if it clasped 
To the strong breast quick-shaken with a sigh 
The herd-girl's yielding laughter, and the hand 
Curves as about a little hand that steals 
Home to its palm — a clinging childish 

hand. . . . 
Sleep, body, sleep! Art thou Endymion? 
Endymion is a god and far away. 
Poor shell of clay, what right hast thou to 

dream 
Dreams of the valley when thy soul is gone? 
Hast thou indeed a life that is thine own? 
Nay, hast thou rights as well? I pity thee — 
For my Endymion shall not taste of death. 
The measureless eternities are his 
Wherein to spend his ever-crescent power. 
His beauty grows forever with the still 
Immortal growth of the unhastening gods 
Who smile to see the worlds drop into dust 
Knowing what is to come. But what of thee, 



[65] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ON LATMOS (continued) 

Endymion the mortal? Thou must grow 
Less beautiful, not more, as year by year 
Binds leaden sandals on thy dragging feet. 
The vision that beholds what men call Time 
A little dancing mote which quivers down 
Among a thousand others through a beam 
Of light supernal, to be lost in dark — 
That vision is the god's, and without end 
His time for loving, as his power for love 
Without a limit. Ah, but what of thee, 
Endymion the mortal? Thou canst love 
Only a little, and a little while. 
And in one little, unexpanding way. 
Earth bounds thee, as it holds thee at the last. 
And if thou go unfruitful to the dust. 
That is thine end. There trembles on my lips 
The smile that is the weeping of the gods 
To think how eagerly thy arms went out 
To clasp me, Artemis, a pace ahead, 
Always a pace ahead and out of reach. 
Poor fool, can mortal arms take Artemis? 
Haply didst even think to have of me 
The comfort of the hearth, and hear my voice 

[66] 



i 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ON LATMOS (continued) 

From lips like thine call "Father" at thy 

knees — 
And I have given thee nothing but long sleep 
Disquieted with dreams. 

The world is still — 
The heavens wheel about me where I stand 
Poised between earth and sky. From far away 
It seems that I can hear the sleepless hearts 
Of all the cheated dreamers of the world. 
The hearts who found the perfect love too late 
To clasp and hold it close — those sadder 

hearts 
Who thought to realize transcendently 
Body and soul, to prison Artemis 
A bride — and fared as thou, Endymion 
The mortal. Bitter waste of dreams and tears ! 
Their eyes are calm with seeing overmuch, 
Those stars — ^but I, since I am of the gods, 
I grieve in vision for the pains of men. 
Such waste of dreams and tears — and yet — 

and yet 
Is it all waste? Blessed indeed is he 

[67] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ON LATMOS (continued) 

Who deems that he has seen God face to 

face. 
Whether the dream be very truth or not, 
Blessed is he if it be truth for him. 
The heart that found the perfect love too 

late— 
Perchance had love been free to clasp and hold 
It had proved less than perfect. Now that 

heart 
Goes glorious, having seen divinity 
Unveiled, a hallowed creature through the 

years. 
And thou, my sleeper — for I call thee mine 
Although thy dreams have never known my 

face, 
What shall I do? Shall I awake thee now, 
Or shall I hold thee here with poppies bound 
Shut from thine earth, thine only heritage. 
Leaving my lover free to range the stars? 

Standest thou here, Endymion the god. 
With sad sweet eyes upon me? Thou hast 
read 

[68] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ON LATMOS (continued) 

My thought while still I locked it in my heart 
Reluctant to release it. O my love, 
Zeus is our father — ^where he giveth life 
Shall we give death? Take unto thee again 
Thy cast-off garment — stooping from the god 
Endue thee with thy body. Go once more 
Unto the valley, to the flocks and herds, 
The rustic festival, the hearth at night. 
Walk clothed among mankind, Endymion, 
Thou who hast run with Artemis free-limbed 
Upon the heights of heaven. Live out thy 

life— 
The things of earth cannot ignobly come 
Ever again, my lover, unto thee. 
And for the sake of her, the child of Zeus 
Who gave thee godhood, thou shalt tenderly 
Cherish and reverence her whom thou dost 

choose 
To be thy wife, and thou shalt carry forth 
Thy children to behold me in the sky. 
And teach them little songs of Artemis. 
Thine earthly vesture shall conform itself 
To thy true body's beauty, till at last 

[69] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



ON LATMOS (continued) 

It fall from thee, thou hardly knowest how 
Nor carest, and thou face me once again 
Upon these heights, my lover and my god — 
The truer god because the truer mart. 

I bid thee no farewell, Endymion. 



[70] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



M 



GIFTS 

ANY have given me songs, 

Others have given me power, 
Joy like a cleaving sword, 
Pain like a rain-sweet flower, 
Vision of worlds unfound. 
Dreams that burn in the breast. 
With a smile in your quiet eyes 
You give me — rest. 



FRIENDS have clasped my hand, 

Lovers my lips have kissed. 
Priests have lifted my soul 
As the incense rises in mist. 
Prophets have called me like trumpets 
Where the work of the world is done. 
You open the door of my heart 
To God's dear sun. 



[71] 



THE PIXY 



"And out of darkness came the Hands 
That reach through nature, moulding men," 



[73] 



It is believed in Cornwall, especially in the wilder and 
more remote districts, that the pixies sometimes put 
their offspring secretly in the place of himian children, 
that such changelings may learn the secrets of human- 
ity and bring back the knowledge to their people. It 
is quite possible that a pixy changeling might live un- 
challenged in a mortal community till recalled by the 
pixy people. Midsummer Night, it hardly need be 
repeated, is the one time of the year when the two 
worlds merge. The action of this story, therefore, 
takes place always at that time. 



PEOPLE OF THE STORY 

UNCLE SAUNDRY, an old man 

WILL TREGINE, a young farmer 

HUGH PENWARDEN, a young fisherman 

MARGARET 

THE PIXY, known humanly as LYLIARD 

YOUNG HUEY 



[74] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



PART I 
THE PIXY 

We see a wooded cliff on the Cornish Coast. At the right 
stands a newly built cottage which evidently has 
never yet been occupied. There is a bridal sugges- 
tion in the clumsy tenderness with which flowers have 
been planted about the door. There is a narrow gap 
between the cottage and the thicket, where the blue 
of the deep sea is visible. Will Tregine is filling in 
the ground about the roots of a sapling that he has 
just planted before the cottage. Uncle Saundry 
stands directing the operation; both men are leaning 
against a strong wind from the sea. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
So — Stay her well and pack her sound. 
She'll stand if once she grips the ground. 

WILL 
A stormy day you chose for her! 
UNCLE SAUNDRY 
The little people are all astir 
In the rustle of leaves and the splash of the 

spray. 
How else could it be upon Midsummer Day? 
She will be 



[75] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



A lucky tree. 

For I dug her from Saint Leven's greefl. 

WILL (laughing) 
You pointed and I dug, you mean. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
She'll prosper those that here shall bide, 
Hugh and Margaret, groom and bride, 
And many little ones beside. 
There'll be no pixy-pranks to fear. 
No changeling in the cradle here! 
This tree will guard the house like Vicar's bless- 
ing. 

WILL 

Why should the need for such a shield be press- 
ing? 
Is it for malice, nothing more. 
That pixies vex poor mortals so? 
There's little of the fairy-lore 
You do not know. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

Aye, you do well to learn of me, 
Not join the fools who nowadays 
Flout all they are too blind to see. 

[76] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



I know the hidden people's ways. 

Hugh says there are no pixies — ^pooh! 

Nor spriggans neither. Clever Hugh — 

He might be wiser and sadder too 

But for this guarding tree. 

Malice? They have no more of spite 

Than winds and waters, day and night — 

Or so my grandsir told it me. 

But curious, as all wild things are, 

They wonder at the ways of men 

Who live and die and live again 

As we may wonder at a star. 

For they are kin to all the elements — 

Earth, water, air and fire they know full well — 

But of one word they never learned the sense. 

What is a soul, not one of them could tell. 

This is the secret, which to know 

Into the world they go 

As changelings, there to live and grow 

Like women and like men 

Till their own people call them back again. 

WILL 

And have they not yet learned it? 
Such patience should have earned it ! 



[77] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Here's Hugh ! We got your gift in place 
Just in good time. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

That is no bridal face — 

(Hugh enters from the wood, troubled and brooding, 
so absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts that he does not 
see them.) 

He's pixy-led. This is no lucky day 

To walk the woodland all alone, that way. 

(He sings.) 

Midsummer Day, Midsummer Day, 

That is the time when the pixies are gay. 

Midsummer Night, Midsummer Night, 

That is the season of fairy delight — 

HUGH (interrupting harshly) 

So Lyliard learned that song from you! 
You might have better business 
Than giddying her featherbrain 
With fairy tales and fancies vain — 

WILL 

Come, come ! You show us something less 
Than gratitude. See, Hugh, 
Here's Uncle's wedding-gift. 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUGH 
A tree — 
Why, that's a kindly thought; and it will grow 
As love should grow — and shall, God prosper 

me. 
Forgive me for my hasty speech and rude. 
This last day's waiting shakes my fortitude. 
I'm not myself. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

That's natural, I know. 

HUGH 

I thank you — aye, and so shall Margaret too, 
And many a summer may it shelter you ' 
Smoking your pipe beside our cottage door. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

Aye, for I'm human. Pixy-folk and such 

Will be afraid 

To let its slender shade 

Fall on them — and its leaves they dare not touch. 

A holy tree — it rooted in the sod 

Of the green path the good Saint Leven trod. 

I have known my years threescore 

And ten — I do not ask for more ; 



[79] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Yet I would plant its mate before I go 
For you and Lyliard, Will. Be not afraid 
For all they call her changeling, pixy-maid. 
Lasses were made for wooing, lad — make haste, 
For neither youth nor age has time to waste. 
When cherries ripen is the hour to taste. 
I warrant you she will not answer no. 

HUGH 

Poor Will — why give him such a stormy part? 
He loves a quiet life. 
Better to take the northeast gale to heart 
Than Lyliard for a wife. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

I know the talk — she's wild and cold, they say, 
As yonder spindrift gray. 
Never heed them. Will — she is not so. 
Young eyes often see less clear than old. 

WILL (waves a hearty farewell as the old man goes 

away) . 

Wise Uncle ! She is neither wild nor cold, 
But pure and strong as the shoreward air 
Salt from leagues of open sea. 

[80] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUGH 
Did I not say the northeast gale 
That snaps the mast and splits the sail? 
Poor Uncle Saundry's wits are doited fair 
To bid you mated with the tempest be. 

WILL 
Pure and strong, and the heart behind 
Those clear eyes would be wondrous kind 
Could one but win her to his mind. 

HUGH 
She seems not so to me. 
Rather like fleeting fires of storm 
That flicker through the thunder-hill — 
The lightning-flame that cannot warm 
But only . . . kill. 

Well, we have always quarreled, she and I. 
I never liked her — who knows why? 
And for herself, she bears me scant goodwill. 
Like flint and steel we two have always clashed 
And from our smitten tempers, anger flashed. 
I never saw her but in stormy mood; 
To Margaret she seems another being. 
But Margaret's eyes were only made for seeing 
Things that are beautiful and sweet and good. 



[8i] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Our childhood as it slipped away 

Disclosed our later love begun — 

Calm as the dawning of the day, 

Sure as the rising of the sun. 

Our feet were made in tune to tread 

The long, long road of flowers and dust. 

Ere we were born, we two were wed — 

Mine was her love and hers my trust. 

Dear hearth to-morrow sets aglow 

Our dwelling's constant heart to be, 

Our love shall comfort even so 

My home in her and hers in me. 

Need calls me out upon the deep 

Where gulls wheel wild and billows comb. 

Whatever perils round me sweep. 

This holy light shall draw me home. 

Yes, from the very arms of death. 

From any storm by sea or land. 

My breath would answer Margaret's breath, 

My hand would grope for Margaret's hand. 

WILL 

It must make all the difference to know 
Some one is waiting you at home, her gaze 
Upon the road, thinking your pace too slow 



[82] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



After a day apart. Why, I could fare 
So gladly home, were such a welcome there- 
While now I plod my dull accustomed ways 
And lift my lonely latch with none to care 
Because there's nowhere else for me to go. 
Were Lyliard waiting me at close of day — 

HUGH 
The Pixy by a hearth, a cradle? Nay! 

WILL 
Why not? 

HUGH 
The pixy-folk, old women say. 
Lure wayfarers to flounder lost in mire 
By taking on the semblance of a fire 
Shining through cottage windows in the night. 
The poor fool hastens toward the cheering light 
And plumps into a bog, where he may wallow 
Cursing his luck till morning. Do you follow 
My parable? 

WILL (laughing good-humoredly) 

Oh, yes — I understand! 
For you there is no woman in the land 
But Margaret. All the rest to earth you beat 



HEARTS AWAKE 



That she may have a carpet for her feet. 
You pay her not her due unless you dare 
Admit that other maidens too are fair. 

HUGH 
What do you mean by dare not? 

WILL 
Poor lad! You will be quieter to-morrow. 

HUGH 
Mock as you will, I care not. 

WILL 
Indeed I mock not when) I bid you borro\s^ 

(sings) 

A sturdy coat of badger-skin 

To wrap your ticklish temper in. 

Every man's touchy, so they say, 

Just before his wedding-day. 

His freedom he must kiss good-by 

And turn her from the door. 

He dare not even roll his eye 

In ways he walked before — 

Come, come ! You will not frown at an old friend 
For a silly song? I'm envious, that's all, 
[Wishing that I might hear the welcoming call 



[84] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Of wife and little ones at labor's end. 

Now if the good Lord prosper me, 

Uncle shall plant another tree 

When this year's earning safe in store is laid — 

But you must set your sinew to that spade! 

This thought was Uncle's, fair and fine, 

But all the sweat was mine. 

Do you as well for me when comes my day! 

HUGH (as the village clock strikes twelve in the dis- 
tance) 

Hark — that is noon. 
Margaret will be here soon. 

WILL 
Margaret's to meet you here? Then I'm away. 
Do you as well for me when comes my day ! 

(When he is gone, Hugh stands for a moment looking 
out to sea, then, squaring his shoulders resolutely as if 
to throw off an incubus, he goes to the cottage. One of 
the plants beside the door is drooping for lack of a stake. 
He takes out his knife, cuts a twig from one of the bushes 
of the thicket, and begins trimming and pointing it. As 
he does so, he begins to whistle "Midsummer Day," but 
stops annoyed as he realizes it.) 

HUGH 
I'm pixy-led — I mean, my mind's astray. 
Plague on the tune, it flickered through my 

thought 
Like summer lightning — 



[85] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



(he breaks the stick, throws it down and angrily pockets 
his knife) 

I am good for naught. 
Every man's touchy, so they say, 
Just before his wedding-day. 
His freedom he must kiss good-by. . . . 
Plague on Will Tregine, and on the dry 
Musty intolerable jape 
From which some idiot must always scrape 
The same old music when a man is wed! 
Freedom — ^would I be free from Margaret? 
Such freedom would be hell. If she were dead 
I would be hers — I never could forget. 
Only to think of her brings back my calm. 
Her name upon my lips is holy balm — 
Margaret — Margaret — Margaret — 
Here she will train about the door 
Sweet hardy roses, and her hand 
Will coax up flowers where before 
Was only barren sand. 
Her pathway shall with box be set 
To make the dewy twilight sweet, 
And gilliflowers and mignonette 
Shall cluster at her feet 



[86] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



With heartsease for her bosom white 
To match the heartsease in her eyes — 

(Suddenly, in the wood, there is heard a song. The 
voice of the singer has an unhuman quality in its beauty, 
like the voice of a bird or of a young boy.) 

Give me the red of the day 

For a kirtle gay! 

Give me the lightning to wear 

For a snood in my hair ! 

Ribbons and laces are maiden's array, 

But I must have fire to be fair. 

(Hugh has stood rigid, listening. As the slight figure 
of the Pixy, in a scarlet gown, appears from the wood, he 
turns and is about to go, but she runs across and inter- 
cepts him.) 

HUGH 

Lyliard — 

THE PIXY 

Why do you run away? 
I will not eat you. 

HUGH 

How did you happen to come this way? 

THE PIXY 

Thinking to meet you. 

HUGH 
What can you have to say to me? 

[87I 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE PIXY 
Only well-wishing. 

To-morrow drops net in a deep new sea — 
Good luck to your fishing! 
HUGH 
On no new ocean I embark to-morrow ; 
I sail a coast well charted. 
Together we have proven joy and sorrow. 
I know her golden-hearted. 
Life is a simple thing if we but live it 
In faithfulness and duty, 

And should I wrong her, may not God forgive it 
Unto my soul — 

THE PIXY (interrupting with strange quiet intensity) 

We walked along the shore, one day, 

And you and Margaret walked behind. 

"I love you, dear," I heard you say, 

"With all my heart, with all my mind, 

"With all my soul. . . ." 

HUGH 
You were with Will Tregine, yet you could hear 
What I was saying? Is my voice so clear? 

THE PIXY 

You spoke a word that meant more to my ear 
Than any that he uttered. Is the whole 



[88] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Of what you call a soul 

In love of man and woman? 

HUGH 
Things like that 
I leave alone. Souls are the vicar's trade. 

THE PIXY 
He? He knows as little as his cat — 
Less, maybe. Why, he's weakly and afraid 
And old as Uncle Saundry. Neither one 
Could stare with open eyes against the sun. 
Surely a soul is beautiful and strong. 

HUGH 

Ask Will Tregine. He would not tell you wrong. 

THE PIXY 

He . . . frightens me. It is to you I turn. 
Why do you look away? 

HUGH 

Your eyes — they bum. . . . 

THE PIXY (with an impish return to her song) 

Give me the lightning to wear 

For a snood in my hair ! 

Ribbons and laces are maiden's array, 

[89] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



But I must have fire — 
Why have you called me all the morning 
through? 

HUGH 
I have not called you. 

THE PIXY 

Ask your friend the vicar 
If it be not a sin to speak untrue. 
Look how the lightnings flicker 
In that great cloud-bank — ^but no rain to-mor- 
row! 

HUGH 
I had not even thought of you. 

THE PIXY 
Oh, sorrow, 
I'm growing deaf. 'Twas not your voice at all? 
But I called you. Did you not hear me call? 

HUGH 
No. 

THE PIXY 

Not a whisper? 

HUGH 
No, I say. 



[90] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE PIXY 
Did you not feel a stinging drive of spray 
Salt on your cheek? The wind's wild fingers 

strong 
Twisted among your hair? Did you not long 
To cleave the water like a straight white dart 
And swim forever? Had you not at heart 
A sudden sickness for the open sky? 
Lay not the roof upon you like a shroud? 
Did you not long to ride a flying cloud 
And pluck the stars like blossoms? That was 

I 

HUGH (shaken, with an effort at mockery) 
Pixy! 

THE PIXY 
Aye, turn your coat with speed 
Before a spell be cast on you. 
Who was it said he did not heed 
These stories of the pixy-breed? 
Not one of them is true, said he- 
Wise man was he ! Who could it be? 
Not one of them is true ! 

HUGH 
If Will Tregine could see you now 
He too would vow 



[91] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



You are more kin to wild things of the wood 
Than to the womankind men woo and wed. 

THE PIXY 
What do you mean? 

HUGH 
He said 
You are so gentle and so good ! 

THE PIXY 
Something in him I never understood. . . . 
Something in me he cannot understand. . . . 

HUGH (harshly, as if in spite of himself) 
Tell me — do you love Will Tregine? 

THE PIXY 
You would be glad? 

HUGH 
I? Bah — it's no concern of mine 
Except that he's an honest lad 
Worthy a woman's best. 

THE PIXY 
You think 
I'd give him — what? Your meaning? 

HUGH 
None. 



[92] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE PIXY 

Look at me, Hugh — why do you blink 
As if you looked against the sun? 

(Breathing hard like a spent runner, he makes an in- 
voluntary movement toward her, but she whirls away 
lightly as a wind-blown leaf, singing as she dances.) 

Midsummer Day, Midsummer Day, 
That is the time when the pixies are gay. 
Midsummer Night, Midsummer Night, 
That is— 

(a pirouette brings her face to face with Uncle Saundry's 
tree, her foot almost touching its shadow on the ground. 
She stops short) 

Where did you get that tree? Since yesterday 
It was put here. 

HUGH 

Why, any one would say 

The nickname we have given you 

Is not a jest, but true! 

Thanks to Saint Leven, it's a holy tree — 

THE PIXY 
Then if I be 

A pixy, I must walk around — 
Like this — its shadow on the ground. 

[93] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



(She does so with a pretty burlesque of caution, then, 
with a triumphant ripple of laughter, dashes for the win- 
dow of the cottage.) 

Let me look in! 

HUGH (stopping her) 
Not before she comes — no. 

THE PIXY 
What harm is in my glance, to fear it so? 

HUGH 
The house is hers and hers the earliest sight. 
That is her right. 

THE PIXY 
Have it your own way, then. 
Curious things are men! 
If Will Tregine had built a house for me, 
Would he make Margaret wait tiU I could see? 

HUGH 
How much you speak of him ! Ah, yes, some day 
He'll win you. 

THE PIXY 

No— 

HUGH 

Why do you turn away? 
Look you at me. . . . 



[94] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



God, but you're beautiful, you pixy-sprite! 
How do you talk to Will Tregine? 

THE PIXY 
Ask him — that is fair. 

HUGH 
Do you gaze him drunk with your eyes* dark 
wine? 

THE PIXY 
Ask him — if you care. 

HUGH 
Do you smile him mad with your scarlet lips. 
Do you pluck at his heart with your finger-tips 
And drown his soul in the dusk of your hair? 

THE PIXY 
Ask him — if you dare. 

HUGH 
That's once too often for a man to bear, 
You lovely devil — does he kiss you so? 

(Eagerly she yields to his arms and raises her lips to 
his; but after a moment she holds his face a little from 
her, studying it with a wistful perplexity that has no pas- 
sion in it.) 

THE PIXY 

Here's nothing I need take such pains to know. 
I knew long, long ago 



[95] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



That man to woman turns 

As surely as water drenches, as fire burns 

Or as the small resistless grasses grow. 

I thought that love was greater far than this- 

Or is it something I must always miss? 

Would Margaret have found it in that kiss? 

HUGH (abruptly releasing her) 
Margaret! Oh, God! 

THE PIXY 
What ails you? 

HUGH 
Shame. 
Bitter to my soiled lips is now her name- 
How shall I meet her quiet smile 
Clean as I was an hour ago? 
What shall my sickened heart beguile 
To forget its overthrow? 
Eternal truth how can I swear 
Whose lips are blackened by a lie? 
Her constancy how can I bear 
Knowing well how false am I? 

THE PIXY 
Then that was love, as you love her? 



[96] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUGH 
No, no ! 
Madness, an evil dream! And yet • . . and 
yet . . . 

THE PIXY 
There is — a thing beyond — that's closed to me. 
Still to go seeking, when I thought at last 
I had the secret! Well — if it must be. . . . 
Hugh, do not grieve so. What is past is past — 
You only need forget. 

HUGH 
Can you — forget? 

THE PIXY 
Why not? You plucked a fruit upon the wall 
When you were hungry. What is there to blame ? 

HUGH 
It was no more that led to Adam's fall 
And barred the gate of Paradise with flame. 
I was so strong — so happy — till you came ! 

THE PIXY 
You will be so again when I'm away. 

HUGH 
You are going? Yes — O God, I pray, I pray 
That I may never see your face again ! 



[97] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE PIXY 

I wish I knew Him. 

HUGH 
Who? 

THE PIXY 

The One whose name 
Men use so much. You speak it not the way 
The vicar does — not coldly — yet it seems 
Hardly as if you named one real to you, 
A friend. I feel that He could make my dreams 
Come true 
If I could ever find Him. 

HUGH 
Lyliard, 
Where will you go? 
No — no — I must not know — 

THE PIXY 
What I seek I'll find or miss 
In other towns as well as this. 
Farewell, Hugh. 

(She leaves him without a backward glance.) 
HUGH 
Lyliard! Is it all a dream? 
Could I but wake and find it so — 



[98] 



HEARTS AV7AKE 



Life as it was an hour ago! 
I never saw the wild sweet gleam 
Of those dark eyes — she never came 
Out of the shadow, young Desire 
On flickering feet as light as flame — 
Never my arms — she told me to forget, 
Who gave me back my kiss when our lips met ! 
My heart is like a house gutted with fire. 
Margaret — Margaret ! 

I dare not think of what before was bliss. . . . 
She will train about the door 
Sweet hardy roses, and her hand 
Will coax up flowers from the sand, 
But heartsease — nevermore. 
Why, this is folly. What's a kiss? 
Nothing to cause so much ado. 
Men steal them under the mistletoe 
For all to see, and laughing too. 
And yet, I know 

There was no laughter in my heart — for 
this. . . . 

(He has flung himself down on the step of the cottage, 
and hides his face in his arms. Margaret enters, and 
stooping over him lays her hand on his shoulder.) 

MARGARET 

Why, what's amiss, dear lad? 
[99] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUGH 

Myself. I hate 
Myself, unworthy of your purity, 
Your tenderness. Before it is too late, 
Beloved, dare you give yourself to me? 

MARGARET (seating herself beside him, her soothing 
hand still on his shoulder) 

It is too late to take again 
My gift that is not of to-day. 
Children at play, I loved you then 
As I shall love you when we're gray. 
'Tis not to-morrow makes me yours ; 
Yours I have been these many years. 

HUGH 
Margaret, such a love endures 
Though all our world stream down in tears. 
And yet I am not fit to kiss 
Your slender footprints in the dust. 

MARGARET 
Dear boy of mine, what folly's this? 
Love requites love, trust answers trust. 
No chaffering between us two. 
No merchant's talk of more and less ! 
All that I am is one with you 
In faith and joy and tenderness. 



[ 100 ] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUGH 
Give me the clearness of your eyes 
That I may see myself therein ! 

MARGARET 

Ah, now my dear again is wise ! 

HUGH 
The man you love can never sin 
Against his image in your heart, 
Never fall short of your belief. 
Yours, Margaret, in joy and grief — 
Yours, Margaret, till death shall part. 

MARGARET 
Now like your very self you seem. 

HUGH 
In your dear eyes myself I see. 
Alone, I had an evil dream 
From which your coming wakened me. 
See, here the house that waits for you 
To make it home. 

(They rise together, his arm about her.) 
MARGARET 
You builded it. 

HUGH 
And it shall see our dreams come true. 



[lOl] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



MARGARET 
To-morrow — 

HUGH 

When the fire is lit. ... 
And you shall train about the door 
Sweet hardy roses, and your hand 
Shall coax up flowers from the sand, 
And heartsease — heartsease . . . 

(involuntarily his eyes turn back to the wood, and his 
voice catches almost in a sob, as if he still saw the Pixy 
flame-like against the green. Then, with a deep breath 
and a resolute lift of his head, he goes on firmly) 

And heartease for your bosom white 
To match the heartsease in your eyes. 

(He opens the cottage door and they go in together.) 



[102] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



PART II 

A year later. We see the interior of the cottage. It is 
simple and sparsely furnished, but clearly the home 
of people who love it and each other. At the right 
is a door, leading to the bedroom. At the left, the 
hearth, beside which stands a cradle. At the back, 
between two latticed windows, through one of which 
we see Uncle Saundry's little tree, is the house-door. 
Just outside, in the warm sunset light, Uncle stands 
with Will, who is looking out to sea through a spy- 
glass. 

WILL 

Aye — yonder is his sail beyond a doubt. 
There's the black M he set against the white 
That Margaret might single out 
His boat from all the rest in sight, 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
That is glad news. 

WILL (entering the house and hanging the spyglass in 
its place) 

And yet how otherwise 
It might have been. With what affrighted eyes 
Might we have seen his homing sail to-day, 

[103] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Had things gone ill with her, and he away. 
I think he would have died upon her grave 
If he had found her dead — and yet he went 
Thinking her sickness safely past, content 
And happy in his new-born son, and brave 
To win the living silver of the wave 
That they might prosper. Strange we never 

hear 
A warning whisper— DANGER DRAWETH 

NEAR- 
GO NOT FROM HOME! He scarce was out 

of sight 
When she was stricken. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

Aye — that very night. 
There's not a doubt that but for Lyliard's care 
She would have died. How speeds your wooing 

there? 
Maids flee to see if men will chase — 
You followed when she set the pace. 
Your feet have worn the herbage down 
Between Tregartha and our town, 
Until you brought her back again. 
Truth, lad — out with it then! 



[104] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Came she in answer more to Margaret's needing 
Or to your pleading? 

WILL 
Uncle, let the matter be. 
Jesting time is past for me. 
Every day I've seen her here 
Has made her twenty times as dear. 
Now I can no longer tarry — 
It must be farewell or marry. 
If she bids me, I will go — 
But I can no longer bear 
Uncertainty. Too much I care 
Whether the word be yes or no. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
Ask her boldly for her yes. 
Maids are tricky creatures — 
Love unsought they'll not confess 
By voices or by features. 
Put it to her blunt and strong — 
Bid her take or lose you. 
Mark me, she will not be long, 
And — she will not refuse you. 

WILL 
Hush! 



[105] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



(The Pixy comes from the inner room, the sleeping 
baby in her arms, and lays it in the cradle. She is dressed 
in a soft dark wine-color, no longer the flaming figure of 
her first appearance, and it is as if a similar shadow had 
come over her whole person. She comes forward to greet 
them, smiling.) 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

Lyliard, Hugh is on the way. 
And how's our Margaret to-day? 

THE PIXY 

Charming. All danger's left behind. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

You are a doctor to my mind. 

THE PIXY 

Herbs I have known since I was wee. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

When I fall sick, will you nurse me? 

THE PIXY 
I will indeed, 

But may we long await the need ! 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
And little Huey — do we dare 
To look at him? 

THE PIXY 

Take care! 
He is asleep. 



[io6] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



UNCLE SAUNDRY 

Ah — SO you should be bending 
Over your own. 

THE PIXY 

There are some lacks that lie too deep for 

mending. 
I walk alone. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

Aye — but not far. That is but girlish talking. 
Ere long, I know 

You'll choose a brave companion for your walk- 
ing. 

(He goes out, closing the door behind him. The Pixy, 
still stooping over the cradle, does not realize that he has 
gone alone, and that Will is left leaning against the wall 
by the door, his arms folded, his eyes fixed on her. She 
sighs, as she answers the last speech.) 

THE PIXY 

Whither to go? 

Never to love, never to hate, 

Never to die, never to live. 

Only to watch and listen and wait 

For a thing that none will give. 

Never to hate, never to love, 

Never to live, never to die — 



[ 107] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



WILL 
Why are you sad? 

THE PIXY 

I did not know you still were here. 

WILL 

You should be joyous, dear, 

If charity well done can make one glad, 

THE PIXY 
I am but less than sad and more than gay, 
'Tis like the twilight of a stormy day 
That clouds me now. 

WILL 
The twilight is the tenderest time of all, 
Calling the farmer from the busy plow 
Toward lighted windows, where the small 
Bright heads are waiting, round the fire, 
And with them his dear heart's desire, 
Their mother — 

THE PIXY 
But I did not know 
That what I did was charity. 
WILL 
Indeed 
It was, for you left all and came to her. 



[io8] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE PIXY 
That is but nature's way, when there's a need 
To answer it. 

WILL 

Life would be lovelier 
Did every heart so simply take 
The way of kindness. Would you show 
Such mercy for another's sake 
As you have shown for Margaret's? 

THE PIXY 
Oh— 
How can I tell unless I know 
The need that calls? It well may be 
A need beyond my power to fill 
Had I a thousand times the will. 

WILL 

Beloved, will you marry me? 

(There is a silence while she stands looking into his 
eyes, her hands clasped on her breast. When she speaks 
at last, there is a different note in her voice from any we 
have heard before.) 

THE PIXY 

In my being then a silence broke, 

As if one stronger than all nature spoke 

A speech I hear but cannot understand. 



[109] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Strange and sweet it sounds to me, 
Like unknown music from the land 
Heard by one adrift at sea. 
Nothing in nature speaks like this. 
Only man such thoughts can know 
And the soul that makes him man. 
If I should give you what I can, 
Would you be happier so? 
Say, will you have my mouth to kiss, 
My hands to make your daily bread. 
My breast to give your children ease? 
If thus your longing may be fed. 
Take me — but in wisdom wed 
And never ask for more than these. 

WILL 

You could more easily have said 

"I love you not," and hurt me less. 

No, no — I meant you no reproach. 

It was my own wild clumsiness 

That warn me as you might, would press 

Its heavy-footed suit, encroach 

Upon your patience. Now farewell — 

I'll trouble you no longer. 



[no] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE PIXY (impulsively detaining him as he turns away) 

No— 
You shall not leave me till I tell 
The truth of why I bid you go. 
What nature feels, that I can feel. 
The laws of earth my life control — 
But to my soul if you appeal, 
What can I say, who have no soul? 
I cannot love, I cannot hate, 
I cannot die, I cannot live 
As you know life. There is my fate, 
A changeling with no heart to give. 
That you would reckon worth the name — 
Yet how am I myself to blame 
That I am but a pixy? 

WILL 
Lyliard ! 

THE PIXY 
Nay— 
But hear me out. I bide with men 
Who knows how long? Perhaps to-day 
My people call me back again. 

WILL 
Child, child ! And why not simply say 
"I do not love you — go your way"? 



[Ill] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



You shall be rid of me at last — 

I do not mean that peevishly, 

Forgive me if it sounded so. 

Tom Polgrain this whole year past 

Has tried to buy my farm of me. 

Now he shall have it. I will go 

And see what fortune has to show 

In other countries oversea. 

And always shall my blessing be upon you. 

Had I been man enough, I would have won you. 

My fault, not yours, that you have said me no. 

Do not be sorry for me — I have had 

So much to make me glad. 

Life has been different since my love began. 

And though I asked for more than you could 

give. 
What you have given, I lose not while I live. 
God bless you — ^keep you — ^love you . . . oh, 

my dear. . . . 
(He goes out quickly.) 

THE PIXY 
And I can only say — Farewell, good man. 

(She presses her hand to her eyes, with a gesture of 
pain.) 



That, I think, would be a tear 

[112] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Were I a woman. Oh, the vain 

Blind uncomprehending pain 

Like the pang of quaking earth, 

The rending agony of birth ! 

And he went in sorrow, fleeing 

Truth too simple for his seeing. . . . 

I fear — I fear! 

This strange thing has come too near. 

I have seen as through a screen 

What a soul may mean. 

And the knowledge moans in me 

Like the fretting of the sea. 

Why should my people strive to learrt 

Of that which they may never gain? 

Peace we lose beyond return 

And all our profit is but pain. 

(She goes to the door and looks out, the sunset red 
on her face.) 

I will forget. 

The sun will soon set 

And with Midsummer dew will the grasses be 

wet. 

Midsummer Day, Midsummer Day, 

That is the time when the pixies are gay. 

Midsummer Night, Midsummer Night, 



[113] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



That is the season of fairy delight. 

Naught could I give him that was worth his 

taking, 
Lacking the gift which is beyond my making. 
Had I a heart, I think it would be breaking. 
Midsummer Day is creeping away. 
The moon's peeping out so white, so white, 
And the stars by and by will come down from 

the sky 
To dance through the midsummer night. 
The stars will come down from the sky 
And the pixies come up from their caves — 
And look at the fireflies, the mortals will cry, 
And the glint of the moon on the waves ! 
Drop me a star to wear 
In the dusk of my hair ! 
Drop me a star to rest 
Like a rose on my breast. 
For in ribbons and flowers a maiden is dressed 
But I must have fire to be fair. 

MARGARET (calls from the bedroom) 
Pixy! 

THE PIXY 
Glad call, glad call! 
I would come home 



[114] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



To the Stars that fall 
And the flying foam. 
Here I am less 
Than nothingness. 
Let me come home ! 

MARGARET (appears in the doorway) 
Pixy, who's there? 

THE PIXY (helping her to the armchair by the cradle) 

No one is here 
But me, my dear. 
I was but singing while I swept. 
Oh, softly, softly! Have you grown so strong 
All in a moment? 'Tis the first you've stepped 
Out of your chamber. 

MARGARET 

Ready I must be 
To welcome back my man from sea. 
Will he not come to-day? He tarries long. 

(She leans back in the chair with a smile) 
I am weaker than I thought. 

THE PIXY (with a nod toward the cradle) 
That was not cheaply bought. 

[115] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



MARGARET (looking into the cradle) 
Who but a mother understands 
The beauty of her babe asleep ! 
See, Lyliard — see his little hands 
Like roseleaves in each other curled — 
Hands that shall strongly plunge and deep 
Into the treasures of the world. 

THE PIXY 
What would you have his manhood be? 

MARGARET 
Leave awhile to me 
My little babe to keep ! 

THE PIXY 
It was yourself that spoke of days to be, 

MARGARET 
Somehow, in your voice it seemed 
I heard — eternity. 

THE PIXY 
You dreamed. 

MARGARET 
What would I not give to him ! 
Strength of soul and strength of limb, 
Beauty of body and of mind, 



[ii6] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



A heart that is both brave and kind, 

The happiness of loyal friends 

And love, the joy that never ends. 

If only I knew magic well, 

I'd weave for him the pixy spell 

Of the elements four — 

Why do you shut the door? 

(THE PIXY has moved swiftly across the room and 
closed the door. Now she returns and seats herself on 
the arm of Margaret's chair) 

The sun has set — the pixy folk might hear. 
What charm is that of which you tell? 

MARGARET (leaning her head on the Pixy's arm) 
Have you forgotten, dear? 
It was yourself who told me, in the days 
When first you came among us, and in jest 
We called you Pixy, for your elfin ways. 
How long ago that seems ! 

THE PIXY 
How long! Lie back and rest 
Here on my bosom. 

MARGARET 
Once, beside the fire, 
Have you forgot? You said, His heart's desire 



[117] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



He cannot lack on whom this spell is wrought. 
You would not tell by whom you had been 

taught, 
But I guessed Uncle Saundry. You recall? 

THE PIXY 
Yes, I remember all. 

MARGARET 
Earth to your eyes that you may see, 
Fire to your heart that you may feel, 
Water to your brow that you may know. 
Air to your lips that you may speak. 

THE PIXY (laying her hand softly on Margaret's 
mouth) 

Hush, hush ! There danger lies. Let it alone. 

MARGARET 

Danger? A mind to which all things are 

known. 
Eyes that see everything, a heart which feels 
And speech that never fails — the whole world 

kneels 
Before the feet of such ! 

THE PIXY 
But if the final touch 
Were lacking? If there came 



[ii8] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Unforeseen, unplanned, 
Something to break the spell. 
And left the heart aflame, 
The eyes wide open — then 
The dazed bewildered mind 
That cannot understand 
All which it sees revealed— 
The lips forever sealed — 
Ah, better cold and blind ! 
That would be what men 
Call helU 

MARGARET 
Lyliard, Lyliard, you frighten me ! 

THE PIXY 
Only a pixy such a power can wield, 
And if the spell should interrupted be 
Only one thing the broken charm can mend. 
A pixy to the elements must yield 
Her being wholly — with the magic, end. 
End. 

And though their life may be of little worth, 
The pixy people cling to life and earth. 
Fearing the darkness there, beyond it all. 



[119] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



MARGARET 
Now you recall 

More than you told me then. 

THE PIXY 
It came to me again. 

(She makes a jest o£ it all, springing up from her seat) 
Try if you will the spell — ^but not with him! 
Look — have I kept your kitchen in good trim? 

MARGARET 
So brave a housewife ! All is clear 
As a new moon, and while I was lying 
Flighty with fever, I could hear 
My pans and skillets calling and crying, 
Margaret, Margaret, come to us ! 
Naughty ones, why did you vex me thus? 
You did not need me — 

And now that I have come you scarcely heed me, 
But to the Pixy turn your faces bright ! 
Tell me, dear, when shall I see 
Your face by your own hearth-fire's light? 

THE PIXY 
Can you tell me? 

(She goes quickly into the bedroom, closing the door 
behind her.) 



[I20] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



MARGARET (smiling with wise tenderness) 
The longing for a woman's part 
Of life is crying in her heart. 
For every woman love is best — 
The wildest bird comes to the nest. 

(The outer door is flung open and Hugh enters. When 
he sees Margaret he runs to her, and falling on his knees 
beside her clasps her in his arms. They are silent for 
a moment.) 

HUGH 
Margaret ! 

MARGARET 

My boy, come back at last ! 
Why, hush — my love, the danger's past. 
Daily I mend ; there's naught to fear. 
Give Lyliard thanks for that. 
HUGH 
The Pixy — here? 
MARGARET 

She's there within. 

HUGH 

Thank her I will. 
They told me of her kindly care, 
But not that she was with you still. 
Later she shall claim her share 
Of gratitude, — but now — all else must wait 



[121] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



And let me look at you awhile. 
Give me the comfort o£ your smile, 
Your touch — ah, God! How desolate 
Without you all my life would be! 
Margaret, Margaret, stay with me ! 

(Again they are silent in a close embrace. There is 
a knock at the door. Hugh rises and opens it, and Will 



enters.) 
Welcome, Will. 



HUGH 



WILL 
Welcome to you, 
And welcome to your Margaret, too. 
'Tis good to see her sitting here 
In her own place 
With such a happy face. 

HUGH 
To think that danger came so near 
To her, and nothing called me back — 
No warning from the cloud's gray rack. 
No whisper from the sea. 
How shall I ever dare again to go 
Since you may have such bitter need of me 
And I not know? 

[122] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



MARGARET 
By friendship was my need well met, 
Care that I never can forget, 
And tenderness beyond my speech. 
As God is never out of reach. 
His angels always are at hand 
In human shape, when comes His call. 
Will, could I make you understand 
All that we three must owe you — all — 
You who brought Lyliard to me ! 

HUGH (low, involuntarily) 

So it was he. . . . 

WILL 

Tax not your slender gain of strength 
To thank me — say it all at length 
To her, and give me for my meed 
Your good wishes on my road. 

HUGH 
What do you mean? You leave us? 

WILL 
That riddle was not hard to read. 

MARGARET 
But why should you so grieve us? 

[123] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



WILL 
Say that I have a roving will. 
That may be true, and where's the harm? 
I've made my bargain not so ill. 
Tom Polgrain has bought my farm, 
And now I'm free to roam my fill 
So my fortune I will try 
Wherever fortune seems to beckon. 
Save that I bid my friends good-by, 
Myself right lucky I may reckon. 
To-morrow morning I'm away. 

HUGH (as if against his will) 
Alone? 

WILL 

Alone. 

MARGARET 
But why this haste? 
WILL 
I've thought of it for many a day — 
Now that I am resolved, why waste 
More time? 

MARGARET 

You go in happiness? 

WILL 
How else? 



[124] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



MARGARET 

And — ^hope? 

WILL 

The worth of that is less. 
A man as he travels may buy 
Gladness with good he can do. 
Fear is a mote in the eye, 
Hope is a stone in the shoe, 
Galling the trudge of the day, 
Making him wish to be winging. 
Once he has cast it away, 
Ort he goes singing. 
And so, farewell. 

MARGARET (taking the hand he holds out to her) 

Farewell — oh Will, dear friend, 
Well may you fare! 

Come back to Cornwall at your wandering's end. 
Lyliard is there — 
Shall I not call her? 

WILL 

I have said 
All that I need to say to her — ^before. 



[125] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUGH 

Will, remember that this door 
Stands evermore ajar for you. 

WILL (as he passes out, looks back with a gallant smil- 
ing wave of the hand) 

I will remember, Hugh. 

MARGARET 

Go with him — speed him on his way, poor lad. 
Brave as his words might be, his eyes were sad. 
Lyliard will help me get to bed. 

(When Hugh has followed Will, she calls) 
Pixy — 

(The Pixy comes from the bedroom. Margaret takes 
her hands and looks up at her wistfully) 

Dear Pixy — did this have to be? 
THE PIXY 

If I could love a man, it should be he. 

I am Grief's daughter. Where I touch, I wound. 

MARGARET 

Not me, dear heart, not me. 
You touched me but to heal. 

[126] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE PIXY 

Perhaps I hurt you, but you were too sound 

And fine of heart to feel. 

Now that Hugh's here again, I'll go my way. 

MARGARET 

So soon? 

THE PIXY 

I've been here many and many a day. 
MARGARET 
Forgive me, dear, if I forget 
You have your own affairs to mind. 
Yourself the parting time shall set — 
But sometimes, Lyliard, look behind 
To those who love you, and who owe 
A debt that only love can pay. 

(With a gesture toward the cradle) 
Here is one who does not know 
He loves you, yet — and yet some day 
He too shall tell you so. 

THE PIXY 

What I have done for you is naught. 
I would that I might feel indeed 
That I had brought 



[127] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Some gift beyond an answered need — 
Something that none but I could give. 
Come, Margaret, come! you are weary — get to 
bed. 

(As she helps Margaret to rise, and they turn toward 
the bedroom, Margaret pauses by the cradle.) 

MARGARET 

Yourself give to us while we live — 
And to him, when we are dead. 

(They go into the bedroom. As the door closes behind 
them, Hugh appears in the outer doorway. He has evi- 
dently been standing outside, where it is now dark.) 

HUGH 

Something has changed her— God! I dare not 

guess 
What it might be. . . . 
She would not marry Will. . . . 
Burns in her veins the longing bitterness 
That poisons me — 

The gnawing hunger that is never still? 
I dare not meet her — every hidden thought 
And every desperate dream of mine has 

wrought 
A mischief on my soul; my strength is straw — 

[ 128 ] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Her voice speaking my name — her touch — 

would light 
A flame to lay in ashes love and law 
And all things safe and beautiful and right. 
O God, be good to me and mine to-night 
And keep us from all evil! 
What was there? 
It sounded like the calling of a horn. . . . 

(A faint, high, sweet note is heard, thrice repeated. It 
is an unearthly sound, almost beyond the scope of human 
hearing, yet strangely penetrating.) 

Sweet as it was, it was not good to hear 

This night of all the year. 

Three times it blew. . . . 

If I had not wit enough to scorn 

The old wives' tales, I'd say the pixies drew 

A changeling home. 

(With a revulsion of feeling he turns to the door.) 
Miserable, to linger here — although 
My heart has sinned and sinned, I could not bear 
The final sin that Margaret must know. 
Though evil spirits fill the darkened air 
And whisper in the leaves and in the foam. 
It is another magic that I fear. 

(He goes out into the dark. The Pixy enters from the 
bedroom, speaking back to Margaret as she comes.) 



[129] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE PIXY 
Yes, I will bring him to you. 

'Twas the call! 
I will go home, I will forget it all. 
I will be playmate of the stars again 
And think no more about the world of men. 

(She takes the baby from the cradle, Hugh's white face 
appears at the window, looking in, but she does not see.) 

Poor little hands that fumble at my breast, 

You are like all the rest 

To whom I could not give the things they 

sought. 
You hurt me, soft wee hands! If there were 

aught 
Within my power to give you, sweet, before 
I go forever hence 
Back to the elements — 
The spell! 

Dear Margaret, a moment more ! 

(She goes swiftly to the door and takes a handful of 
earth from the side opposite the window where Hugh is 
standing. With a small clod she touches the child's eye- 
lids.) 

Earth to the eyes that you may see. 

(Returning to the hearth, she kneels beside it, lays' bare 
the baby's breast and takes up a coal in her fingers.) 

[130] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Fire to the heart that you may feel. 

(As she touches the baby's breast with the coal, Hugh 
rushes in, a branch of the holy Tree in his hand. He 
snatches the child from her and clasps it to his breast, 
holding out the leafy branch between them.) 

HUGH 

So here's the secret of my mad desire ! 

The cruel glory of the fire 

Your sorcery lit in me was hell's own flame. 

Oh, I have been to blame 

Doubting that such dark miracles could be! 

And was it not enough to ruin me 

But you must work your magic on my son? 

But he is saved, thanks to this holy Tree. 

Out of this dwelling that you strove to blight 

Back to the other devils of the night! 

(She has shrunk back before him till she stands in the 
doorway.) 

THE PIXY 

You do hot know the wrong that you have done. 
(She vanishes into the outer darkness.) 



[131] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



PART III 

It is twenty years later. We see the cottage as in the 
first scene. Though it shows evidence of human 
habitation, there is everywhere the feeling of a re- 
turn to wild nature. Uncle Saundry's sapling is now 
a strong young tree, and dominates the tangle of 
weeds and wild flov/ers about the door, where there 
is no longer any trace of a garden. A man comes 
along the overgrown path through the thicket slowly 
but not uncertainly, as one who retraces a familiar 
way after a long absence. It is Will Tregine. The 
years have ripened and expanded him. His hair is 
gray, but he is stronger and finer than in his youth. 
He knocks at the door. There is no answer. Smil- 
ing, he tries the latch; it yields, but he does not 
enter.) 

WILL 

Ajar — ^just as they said that it would be. 

Margaret is on some errand in the town 

And Hugh, perhaps, at sea, 

His boy to help him. Well, I will sit down 

And wait. Strange, strange 

That twenty years should make no greater 

change 
When they have left so deep a mark on me. 

[ 132] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



Naught here that shows their passing but the 
tree — 

UNCLE SAUNDRY (calling as he comes along the path) 
Will! WillTregine! 

WILL (rising from the step to greet him) 

That name is mine. 

God bless you, Uncle Saundry ! but it's fine 

To see your face ! 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

I'll wager that you thought 

I was long underground. Well — ^life is wrought 
In curious patterns! Why should I be here 
When younger folk with life's best years before 

them 
Have grasses growing o'er them? 

WILL 

It is not youth gives living all its zest. 
Sometimes the young are readiest to rest, 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
I know. 

(There is a pause) 



[ 133] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



WILL 
Do Hugh and Margaret live here still? 
I thought it looked the same — but now I see 
A difference. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

That well might be. 
YouVe had no news then since you left us, Will? 

WILL 

At first, I waited for good news to send. 
And then I thought, letters are sorry stuff. 
I will go back to gossip friend with friend — 
Then we can laugh at when the road was rough ; 
Things told are truer than things written. So 
The years went on. 

UNCLE SAUNDRY (appraising his appearance) 

You've prospered well enough. 

WILL 

As goods that sell in market go, 

I am neither rich nor poor. 

I am a farmer still 

On the green slope of a hill 

Beside the western sea. 

But the riches that endure 



[134] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



The years have brought to me. 

And Hugh and Margaret — does their son 

Follow his father's trade? 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
The blunt way is the kindest one» 
Margaret and Hugh were laid 
In churchyard fifteen years ago. 
Hugh's boat was wrecked in a winter blow. 
She had been frail, and fading like spring snow- 
And when his body came ashore, she died. 
So they were buried side by side 
Both in one day. 

WILL 

And little Huey? 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

He 
Came home with me. 

WILL 

Hugh would be far happier that way, 

But Margaret must have wistful eyes 

Even in Paradise 

For the boy she left behind. 

And is he still with you? 



HEARTS AWAKE 



UNCLE SAUNDRY 
No — ^he lives here 
Alone. 

WILL 
Alone? 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
Perhaps you can see clear 
Where I who stand too near 
Am blind. 

He always was a queer, uncanny child. 
Gentle enough, but shy and wild 
As a young fawn — yet one could see 
Nothing lacking in his mind. 
Hugh used to watch him anxiously 
As if he almost thought to find 
Something he feared — when Huey grew 
So strange, that all came back to me. 
He was wondrous quick at school, 
Yet in the things that any dunce 
Could understand, he seemed a fool. 
Sometimes I felt as if he knew 
So much it mazed him. All at once 
When he had turned fourteen, he fell 
Into a dumbness — not a word 
Has any of us heard 



[136] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



From him since then. There is a spell 
On him, I think. He's strong and well 
And handsome, too — but — thus it is ! 

WILL 

You're sure he has no sickness? 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 

What's amiss 
Goes deeper. He fears life, as you might say— 
And people and the world. He would not stay 
There in the town, though every day 
He comes to find if all is well with me. 
He has his garden here, you see. 
Alone he lives. 

WILL 

I'll take him home with me. 
UNCLE SAUNDRY 

If you can make him go. 

There's something holds him here — 

Something we do not know. 

Pixy-work, most like. This is a place 

The village people fear — 

Strange things happen here, they say. 

(He looks about him uneasily.) 
[137] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



The light 
Is fading, Will — this is Midsummer Night — 

(He plucks two sprigs of the tree, puts one into Will's 
buttonhole, one into his own.) 

Not that I am afraid — it's no disgrace 

To do what's prudent. Come you home with me 

And in the morning — 

WILL 
But I want to see 
Huey to-night» 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
Huey will never come 
Hearing a stranger's voice. He's only dumb, 
Not deaf! 

WILL 

Well, you should know him best. 

(He lays his hand on the old man's shoulder, and his 
voice deepens.) 

Uncle — have you ever heard 
Tidings of Lyliard? 

UNCLE SAUNDRY 
Not a word. 
WILL 
God's love on her, wherever she may be ! 



HEARTS AWAKE 



UNCLE SAUNDRY 
YouVe never married, lad? 

WILL 
Her memory 
Was wife enough for me. 

(They go out together by the path. As the sound of 
their steps dies away young Huey comes from the thick- 
ets about the house, noiselessly as a forest animal, iand 
stands looking after them.) 

HUEY 

That's a good man. I do not understand 

All that he says — but something in my breast 

Answers him. I could speak to him, I think, 

Almost as I can speak to her. To-night 

She will come to me — 

This night of all the year 

The pixy-folk are free 

To walk the world — and so she comes to me 

Midsummer Night — one night of all the year. 

Make haste below the brink 

Of the world, red sun ! Give weary people rest. 

And give to me her voice, her eyes, her hand! 

Ah, never was a year so long as this! 

Yet short with dreams wherein I dared to kiss 

The smile upon her lips, and it set free 



[139] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



New wings of spirit both for her and me. 
Dear night, be beautiful for us — 
Heaven of stars, more glorious^ — 
Wood more fragrant, waves more sweet 
In your solemn rhythmic beat 
On sand made silver by her feet. 
Drowsy song of nesting birds 
Be the music of our words. 
From the earth and air and sea. 
From the white fires of the skies 
That burn forever in your eyes, 
Come, beloved — -come to me ! 

(The sun has set, and in the gathering dusk the Pixy 
appears on the edge of the cliff. Her robes are the soft 
amethyst of the twilight sea behind her.) 

THE PIXY 

Huey — my dear. 

HUEY 

Never was so long a year. 

THE PIXY 
To me as well it has been long. 

HUEY 
Each night that brought this hour more near 
My heartbeats made a little song. 

[ 140] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



She is here, she is here, 

Though I cannot see. 

She will never be aught but near 

To me, to me. 

My dear — my dear — ^my dear ! 

(He lays her hand on his heart.) 
Can you not feel the music o£ that song? 
Hark how it says — My dear — ^my dear — ^my 
dear ! 

THE PIXY 

My boy, do I not know? We two belong 
Each to the other. While we are apart 
Your song so echoes in my pixy-heart 
That I could almost dream that heart was human 
Did I not know myself so well. Dear lad, 
I think you are the son I would have had 
If I had been a woman. 
Laugh at me if you will, but since we last 
Sat here together, all the year that's past 
I've nursed that dream as if it were a flower. 
Delighted in its growing hour by hour, 
Loved it and played with it as with a child. 

HUEY 
I do not laugh. 



[141] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



THE PIXY 

And always as I smiled 
And cherished it, the dream smiled back at me. 
I do not speak now of the deeper things, 
Though they were there, 
But of the happy overflow that springs 
From love's abundance — pleasures I could plan 
To take you by surprise — the coquetry 
A mother's many-sided tenderness 
Has for her son and no one else — to wear 
His colors in her dress — 
To see in his clear eyes that she is fair 
To him. It is not vanity so much 
As just the wish to give him all she can 
Of love and loveliness, that he may be 
Familiar with them when he is a man 
Choosing a mate — on a bewildering sea 
Of dreams not set adrift by the first touch. 

HUEY 

I would not go adrift at the first touch. 
Not though I lived where maids would beckon 
me. 

THE PIXY 
Do you still hide yourself? Ah, why? 



[142] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUEY 
I cannot understand the things I see, 
All that I feel I never can express. 
What would men have for me but mockery 
If I should try to live among them? 

THE PIXY 
Yes— 
We are shut out together, you and I — 
No fault of ours. 

HUEY 

I let the world go by. 

What lovelier than the world you make for me? 

THE PIXY 

Yet I would have your heart's horizon be 
Greater than any love of mine could span 
When you are grown a man. 

HUEY 
I am a man. 

Look in my eyes and see. 

(She is sitting on the step of the house, and he on the 
ground at her feet. He rises to his knees; she bends for- 
ward and looks into his eyes. The gladness dies from her 
face, and she speaks drearily.) 

THE PIXY 

So I must lose you too. 

What has this love of yours to ask of me? 



[143] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUEY 
Nothing. 

THE PIXY 
You ask for nothing? Is that true? 

HUEY (still kneeling before her as before an altar) 
My love asks of you 
Not even the right to be. 
Out of eternity it came. 
You did not light, you cannot still 
The white insistence of its flame. 
I love you by the sovereign will 
Of God who is the power to love. 
Long as my soul, that love must live. 
What should I ask of you? Above 
All asking you have given me. 

THE PIXY 

(The moonlight has come into the glade, and lights the 
joy of her face.) 

Above all asking I can give 

You who ask nothing. Truth is sweeter far 

Than any dream. See how the holy touch 

Of the white moon transforms the shadowy 

wood. 

The change is such 

Here in myself who had not understood 



[144] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



That such a love could be. 
Still you seem my son — and yet far more. 
Those trees are lovely as they were before 
The moonlight laid on them that shining grace, 
Yet now — 

HUEY 

Ah, now transfigured is this place. 
The world will never call to me again. 
I shall no more regret 
That I am set 
Apart from other men — 

THE PIXY (laying her arm about his shoulder and her 
cheek to his) 

We are shut out together, you and I. 

(There is the sound of steps coming along the path. 
She rises and stands full in the moonlight as Will enters.) 

WILL 

Lyliard ! (she vanishes into the shadows) 

I thought I saw her standing there, 
The moonlight on her hair. 
Just as I saw her twenty years ago. 

HUEY (rises and comes to him frankly, with out- 
stretched hand) 

You are a lover too — I know, I know! 
[145] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



WILL (without showing surprise at Huey's speech, 
quietly) 

I lost her, lad. 

HUEY 

Perhaps you asked too much. 

Had you asked nothing, only given her 

All that you were, — 

I — I see it here — but cannot tell — 

WILL 
I think you touch 

My trouble all too well. 

Why do you let the village think you dumb? 

HUEY 
I see too much — and then no words will come. 
Better live here and never speak at all 
Except to those who understand. 

WILL 

You mean — 
HUEY (touching the Tree with a smile) 
The kindly folk in green, 

The birds and beasts who know me when I call, 
The sea, the stars, the winds, and one beside 
Who'is the soul of all the world to me. 

WILL 
So speaks a lover of his bride. 



[146] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUEY 

I am not wedded, nor shall ever be 
Save to a dream. 

WILL 
Aye — so it is with me. 

HUEY 
I know. I heard you speaking here to-day 
With Uncle Saundry. And you said you knew 
My father and my mother. 

WILL 
We all grew 
Together here. I mind how when I went, 
Margaret, your mother, said to me, "My friend, 
Come back to Cornwall at your wandering's 

end." 
Well, I came back — too late ever to see 
My friends on earth again. 
But not too late for you. 

HUEY 
And this is then 
Your wandering's end? 

WILL 
Not so. 

My place is over yonder. When I go 

Will you go with me? 



[147] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUEY 
No — ah, no, no, no ! 
I must stay here. 

WILL 
But why? 

HUEY 

I love it so. 
And fear the world. . . . 

What goodness in your eyes! 
It shines through many sorrows. You are 

wise — 

WILL 
Not wise nor good, my boy, only a man 
Who lives among his kind as best he can 
And tries to make the world a better dwelling 
For those who shall come after. That's the soil 
On which is built the buying and the selling, 
The pleasure and the tumult and the toil 
That we call life, and those whose hearts are 

found 
Empty are poor, and those who grip that ground 
With roots that hold, are rich. 



HUEY 
And that is living. 

[148] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



WILL 

Come you and help me live it. 

HUEY 
Help — ^you? 

WILL 

Dear lad, the world has need of such 
Clear eyes, and of the soul without a smutch 
That lights them. As for me, I live alone — 
Though I have comrades numberless, 
You seem to me my very own — 

HUEY 

Had I a life like other men for giving, 

It is to you, true man, that I would give it. 

My place is here — here I have happiness. 

Such happiness as those who share the pain 

And burdens of your world can never know. 

Oh, your eyes hurt me ! but their pleading's vain. 

I have no choice — be merciful and go. 

Let me be happy once again 

As I was before you brought 

The vision of a world of men 

To vex my thought — 

The wrongs I cannot understand — 

[149] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



WILL 

I cannot understand them — but I fight them, 
And some day greater souls than ours shall 

right them. 
For the Great Battle, boy, give me your hand. 
We're made for deeper things than happiness — 
And then, some say it's in the world to find 
Even among the struggle and the stress. 
Will you not come? 

HUEY (flings himself on the step of the house and hides 
his face on his arms) 

I would I had been blind 
As well as dumb ! 

WILL (bends over him. As he does so, the spray of the 
Tree falls from his coat) 

Take time — your mind may change. I lodge to- 
night 
With Uncle Saundry; this is not good-by. 
Sometime we shall be comrades, you and I, 
In the great fight 

Whether you come with me or not. I know 
Some day your soul will drive and you will go, 
But — I would have you side by side with me 
If that may be. 
Good-night. 



HEARTS AWAKE 



(Will goes down the path; as he disappears in the 
thicket, the Pixy comes from the shadow and stands 
looking after him. There is a pause. Huey raises his 
head from his arms, and seeing the little spray of leaves 
that Will has dropped, he takes it in his hand.) 

HUEY 

He wore this — it will be all 

Of him that I shall have to keep 

Except those tears that will not fall 

In the long nights bare of sleep. 

Leaves of the tree 

Of knowledge — knowledge what a man might 

be. 

Why should a crippled spirit learn 

Of powers he can never gain? 

Peace he loses past return 

And all his profit is but pain. 

THE PIXY 
So said I, once — and thought I could forget — 
But there is no forgetting. 
And yet, my dear — and yet — 
Would I if I could? That pain has grown 
My life's most precious stone 
And all else but the setting. 

(Huey looks up at her; he clenches his hands, shaken 
by a silent inward struggle; then, lifting a fold of her 
robe to his lips, he rises to his knee) 



[151] 



HEvARTS AWAKE 



HUEY 

How that may be, I guess — and I shall know 
When I am gone» 

THE PIXY (stooping over him) 

Huey — ^you will not go? 

HUEY 

How easy it would be for me to stay 
Did I not love you so ! 

THE PIXY 

He is not a dream like you and me — 
Following him, you would but lose your way ! 

HUEY 

My love for you is all reality. 

Though I have lived a dream until to-day, 

In my soul's troubled twilight, that shines clear. 

I could not face the village — I took cover 

In solitude and silence for my fear 

And sad bewilderment — but, oh, my dear. 

How can you have a coward for your lover? 

I am afraid of all to which he calls me — 

THE PIXY 
So well, so cruelly well I understand ! 



HEARTS AWAKE 



HUEY 
Yet I must go, no matter what befalls me. 
How could I bear your touch upon my hand 
That shirked its effort at a man's true part? 
Although I fail and fall and go astray, 
Venture I must — the fire is in my heart. 
Dear love — I do not love you, if I stay. 
Tears — ^your tears upon my brow! 
They are a king's anointing to me. Now 
I can be strong ! 

(He springs erect, triumphant. She touches her eyes 
incredulously, and sees that he has spoken truly.) 

THE PIXY (tremulously at first, then with glad 
strength) 

My people cannot weep — 
What are these tears? To the elements must 

yield 
Her being wholly — ^with the magic, end. . . . 
It is the only way. 

You dare to live for me — shall I deny 
You power to live because I fear to die? 
Death — is it death when I can live in you, 
When I, the soulless, pass into your soul 
And give you to the world a perfect whole? 
I shall be part of all you think and do. 



[153] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



You leave me ? No — I shall be with you still 
In the strong metal of your tempered will, 
In the white passion of your purity, 
In the clear wonder of your children's eyes — 
God grant that love and home for you may be ! 
By these my tears upon your forehead wet 
And by my breath upon your lips, we rise 
To God together through eternity. 

(She touches her eyes, then lays her hand on his fore- 
head) 

Water to the brow that you may know. 

(He takes her reverently in his arms; she lifts her face 
to his) 

Air to the lips that you may speak. 

(As his lips meet hers, a cloud dims the moonlight. 
She draws back slowly, taking the spray of leaves from 
his hand.) 

You are going now to him. Give these to me — 
I do not fear them now. Leaves of the tree 
Of knowledge — knowledge what a soul may 
be. . . • 

(The shadow deepens to darkness. There is a moment's 
silence — broken by his steps as he goes away.) 

Welcome darkness, if your way be bright ! 
[^54] 



HEARTS AWAKE 



(The cloud passes, and the moon shines out again in 
full splendor; her shadowy garment has slipped from her 
and she stands alone in pure white, the leaves clasped to 
her breast, her face lifted and transfigured with wonder- 
ing joy.) 

It is not darkness — it is light ... all light. . , . 



[155] 



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